Third-party Twitter apps are facing issues, users say

January 13, 2023 ndowd

People using third-party Twitter clients are facing a number of issues including unable to log in and access Twitter feeds. Tweetbot, Echofon, and Twitterrific, three popular third-party Twitter apps, confirmed the issues and noted that they are not sure what has triggered the glitch.

Tweetbot and other clients are experiencing problems logging in to Twitter. We’ve reached out to Twitter for more details, but haven’t heard back.

We’re hoping this is just a temporary glitch and will let you know more as soon as we know more.

— Tweetbot by Tapbots (@tweetbot) January 13, 2023

We’re aware that Twitterrific is having problems communicating with Twitter. We don’t yet know what the root cause is, but we’re trying to find out. Please stay tuned and apologies.

— Twitterrific (@Twitterrific) January 13, 2023

Because Echofon just stopped working talking about Twitter made changes to the permissions but when it keeps bringing up an error msg instead of the app authorization page.

— Charlie Poppington (@aujha_aye) January 13, 2023

Makers of these apps also complained about these issues on Mastadon. Twitterrific developer Sean Heber said ” Did Twitter just kill 3rd party clients?” while Tweetbot’s Paul Hadad said “I’m hoping whatever is going on at Twitter is just some automated spam protection bot that is incorrectly suspending proper apps”.

Image Credits: Mastodon

Image Credits: Mastadon

In an email response to TechCrunch Haddad said that the issue started around 7.30 PM PT today. He also mentioned that all API requests from the apps are failing.

It’s likely that Twitter made some changes to its API for third-party clients that resulted in these apps breaking down. It’s not clear if this is a step to thwart access to the platform.

Apart from the above-mentioned apps, users complained about being unable to access Twitter from clients like Fenix, Twitpane, Feather, and Talon. So the only way to access Twitter is through the official client or the website.

A post on Twitter’s developer forum said that on the developer portal, these apps show up as “Suspended”.

Since Elon Musk’s takeover, Twitter has killed many developer programs including Twitter Toolbox for app discovery. Third-party developers have been cautious about their development plans around Twitter as the company hasn’t communicated its plans for the ecosystem. Last month, the company’s former head of developer platforms, Amir Shevat, wrote for TechCrunch that the new management broke the trust of developers.

While Twitter hasn’t communicated anything about the issue, the TwitterDev account said last month that the company “will continue to invest in our Developer Platform, especially our Twitter API.”

Earlier this week, Twitter decided to make the algorithmic timeline — named “For You” — the default feed on iOS.

You can contact this reporter on Signal and WhatsApp at +91 816-951-8403 or im@ivanmehta.com by email.

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